Under 2's and TV

Person_one

onlyroz wrote: »

I am fairly sure that TVs have been around for longer than a generation.

...and the idea that children are watching too much and it will lead to the downfall of civilisation has been around since about 5 minutes after they were invented!

milliebear00001

onlyroz wrote: »

I am fairly sure that TVs have been around for longer than a generation.

Ah, but laptops, several pcs in each home, wii, ds, ipad, smartphones and 24/7 childrens programming haven't been. You will have noted that my earlier post does not blame screens themselves, but the fact they are now often used in place of talking and reading.

bylromarha

jellyhead wrote: »

Parents have screens for themselves now too - whereas they used to sit on the bus chatting to their children about the dogs etc. the bus was passing, nowadays a lot of parents are glued to facebook on their smart phones and rarely utter a word to their children. I probably live in quite a deprived area though.

My concern too. Having got a smartphone 6 months ago, then OH getting one 3 months ago it shocked me how easily I got sucked into always "just checking" this that and the other. Am having to make a real effort to turn it off and know if my kids were little now, they would not have been spoken to as much as they were when they were little 5 years ago.

As for the TV thing - when I was young, I had 3, then 4 channels to choose from, and TV for kids was on 2 of them between 11.30am-12pm (Button moon/Rainbow) and 3pm - 5.35pm. School programmes on 1 of the channels between 9am and 12pm.

It is a much bigger problem for todays parents with kids TV accessable 24/7. Which is why I maintain the off switch has to be the domain of the parent.

Person_one

bylromarha wrote: »

My concern too. Having got a smartphone 6 months ago, then OH getting one 3 months ago it shocked me how easily I got sucked into always "just checking" this that and the other. Am having to make a real effort to turn it off and know if my kids were little now, they would not have been spoken to as much as they were when they were little 5 years ago.

I'm sure they would, plenty of parents are still managing to be good parents and talk to their children despite having smartphones. Good parents are good parents, there have always been distractions of some sort.

My dad's mother was a disinterested parent back in the sixties, my auntie was one in the seventies and eighties. There will always be parents who do their best for their children and parents who don't really bother, regardless of what technology is available.

dizziblonde

onlyroz wrote: »

I am fairly sure that TVs have been around for longer than a generation.

But roll back to our generation - kids' TV was on for - what? a couple of hours an evening before the news. Now it's wall-to-wall up to 24 hours a day and you've got situations where it's such an integral part of bedtime routines that Mumsnet has a collective meltdown when Cbeebies changes the order of the bedtime hour programmes.. and when you add in things like iPads (and the ex-Reception teacher in me rejoices that you haven't just taught upper case A B Cs by the way!) and everything else starting with an i or not - there's a heck of a lot of screentime out there. Go back just a couple of years - the idea of taking the internet everywhere with you would have seemed incredible... and now it's utterly commonplace.

And yes, lots of children ARE starting school with less and less language skills - despite the fact there's a lot of very good educational programming out there - there's also a lot of advert-riddled tat, and even the good stuff overused as a babysitter doesn't substitute for conversation and interaction with adults.

I do, however, mourn the days of the Schools TV countdown clock between programmes and the disgusting level of excitement it used to conjure up in us when we all trotted along to the "TV room" to huddle around one of those TVs in a cabinet on wheels, in order to watch our class TV programme that week. You don't get edge-of-your-seat pant-wetting excitement like that anymore!

onlyroz

milliebear00001 wrote: »

Ah, but laptops, several pcs in each home, wii, ds, ipad, smartphones and 24/7 childrens programming haven't been. You will have noted that my earlier post does not blame screens themselves, but the fact they are now often used in place of talking and reading.

Computers and consoles have been fairly common in the home for at least 20-25 years. When I was a kid many of my friends had some sort of games computer (back then it was the Amiga, Spectrum or the NES) and the Gameboy or Atari handheld thingy was extremely commonplace.

onlyroz

dizziblonde wrote: »

and when you add in things like iPads

Do people seriously let their under-2s use an iPad unsupervised? I'll let my 3-year-old play Peppa Pig under extremely close supervision, after carefully washing her hands - but I wouldn't trust a toddler to run around with a £700 device.

Nicki

onlyroz wrote: »

Do people seriously let their under-2s use an iPad unsupervised? I'll let my 3-year-old play Peppa Pig under extremely close supervision, after carefully washing her hands - but I wouldn't trust a toddler to run around with a £700 device.

I did make the mistake of leaving my 2 year old sitting outside the bathroom watching THomas the Tank Engine on YouTube while I had a shower a few weeks ago. He came pottering in a few minutes later and threw the iPad into the shower with me :eek: Surprisingly, the water didn't do it any harm, but hitting the bath put a massive crack across the screen . I have to say though the apple store were fantastic and replaced it for me (and probably had a good laugh about what happened too). Won't be making that mistake again in a hurry though...

dizziblonde

onlyroz wrote: »

Do people seriously let their under-2s use an iPad unsupervised? I'll let my 3-year-old play Peppa Pig under extremely close supervision, after carefully washing her hands - but I wouldn't trust a toddler to run around with a £700 device.

The number of women I see at baby groups letting their baby happily chomp away on their iPhones is quite startling! I have at least one friend who had to get her phone repaired because of teething baby slobber.

delain

Before my mobile was stolen Squeak and I used to look at the photos I had taken throughout the day... She used to enjoy that. It was nowhere near as expensive as an iphone though!

I was quite miffed at losing all the lovely pictures of her jumping in the big puddle, and at the park, and with an enormous gingerbread man she had one day